


Arcade

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Friendship, Fun, Humor, Silly, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: In which the Doctor takes Leela to an arcade!
Relationships: Fourth Doctor & Leela
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	Arcade

**Author's Note:**

> I love Four and Leela so much!! I'm super upset because I finished all the Big Finish stories with them that are on Spotify. :( But I really want to write more with them because they're just so much fun, and I especially love the idea of them visiting the present time! 
> 
> Enjoy, my friends! :D

“Doctor, what is this place?”

The Doctor stopped in his tracks. “Hm?” Leela watched as he peered through darkened glass and smiled. “An arcade!”

She followed his gaze. “And what is this ar-cade? Is it like the diner we just went to?” 

“No, much different. It’s a place where people play games.” 

Leela managed to see a few figures inside, standing still in front of what she thought were machines. “They do not look like they are playing. And they do not look like children, either.” 

_ “Video  _ games,” the Doctor clarified. “They’re not just for children, and you play them on a computer of sorts.”

Leela frowned, not able to picture it.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” He opened the door and swept inside, as if forgetting about her altogether. Leela followed closely behind him, unsure of the dark environment and all the strange computerised noises surrounding her. 

The Doctor approached one of the machines and dug in his pocket. He produced a handful of coins and inserted a couple into a slot on the machine. 

Leela studied the name of the machine. “Guh-la-guh,” she read. “Is it a robot?” Over the Doctor’s shoulder, she watched as small figures with nearly indiscernible shapes flew across a black computer screen. 

“It’s a  _ game,”  _ he reiterated, “called Galaga. And I am rather an expert at it, too.” 

Not wanting to wrongly assume anything else, Leela silently watched the Doctor as he started the game. 

“Ah, I see,” she said after a minute’s observation. “You control the little spaceship at the bottom and you attempt to destroy the other spaceships?” 

“Essentially, yes.” The Doctor’s first spaceship got destroyed and he frowned, cracking his knuckles before he tried with the next one. 

“And when do you win this game?” 

“Well,” the Doctor said, his body growing tense as the screen lit up with more enemy spaceships, “the point isn’t really to win, but to get the highest score you can.” 

Leela nodded, beginning to understand. “And you score points when you destroy the enemy spaceships?” 

A stray laser blasted the Doctor’s last ship to pieces. The Doctor sighed. “Yes. And it seems I’m a bit out of practice.” 

“May I try?”

The Doctor inserted some more coins into the Galaga machine and stepped to the side. “You move left and right with that,” he said, pointing to a lever, “and you fire at the other ships with that.” He pressed a red button on the console. 

“This is simple,” Leela said as she placed her hands at the ready, determined to last longer than the Doctor had. However, she was quickly caught off guard and lost all of her ships within the first round. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at the machine. “This is not a game; it is not fun.” 

“It just takes some getting used to,” the Doctor said as he stepped up to try again. Leela noted that he didn’t make it much further than he had last time. But instead of admitting defeat, the Doctor declared he was bored and wanted to move on to another game.

As they walked further into the arcade, Leela spotted a couple of boys holding rifles and pointing them at a screen. She stopped and watched, seeing that they used the fake guns to shoot at large animated creatures. 

“That one!” Leela exclaimed, pointing. 

The Doctor frowned. “Leela—”

“It is the sort of game I will be good at.” 

The Doctor grudgingly agreed and dumped some coins in her hand, declaring he was going to find another game. Leela watched the boys with the rifles get ‘eaten’ by one of the creatures in the game and then argue as they walked away from the game. Leela snatched up one of the rifles, which she realised was connected to the console, and inserted two coins like she had seen the Doctor do with the Galaga game. The screen came to life with colour, and an animated man told her that she had to shoot at the monsters called dinosaurs. 

Leela almost left when she didn’t see any dinosaurs for a good minute or two, but then all at once they appeared. She yelled a battle cry as she rapidly destroyed all the dinosaurs that approached her. The game went on, and she noticed she made it further than the two boys had. Finally, several people came on the screen and congratulated her. A large number rolled across the screen--her points, Leela realised. 

She left the game with a grin on her face, wondering what she could do with her points, but was quickly distracted by a game projected on a wall. It seemed to be some sort of race in little cars with a much clearer picture than the other two games she had played. She trained her eyes on the screen, then the four players who controlled their animated characters with little plastic things in their hands. It didn’t seem hard. 

Leela shrugged. She might as well give it a try. 

* * *

“Take that!” 

The voice rang across the arcade, distracting the Doctor from his riveting game of Pac-Man. He looked up and allowed poor Pac-Man to get eaten by the ghosts. Without a thought he hurried toward the voice, desperately hoping Leela hadn’t started a fight in the middle of an arcade. 

He had to push through a crowd and wondered what on earth was going on until he saw a four player game of Mario Kart projected on the wall. 

“Taste my turtle shell, you stupid monkey!” Leela sat cross-legged atop a table, grinning madly as she cradled a Wii controller in her hands. The Doctor quickly identified her player as Bowser. His jaw almost dropped as he realised she was in first place. 

Leela won the race far ahead of anyone else, uttering a triumphant yell as she crossed the finish line. The crowd cheered, and the Doctor smiled. Leela caught his eye. 

“Doctor!” she called, waving at him. “I have found a fun video game that I am good at!” 

The Doctor chuckled. “All right, savage.” He commandeered a remote from another player. “Just wait until I join in.” 


End file.
